ArmInfo.It may sound strange, but the process of dismantlement of the Third Republic was perhaps launched when the Republic was actually in the making, Doctor of History Hayk Demoyan said in an interview with ArmInfo.
"It was Armenia's first President Levon Ter-Petrosyan who announced that by stating that Armenia and the Armenian nation did not need a national ideology. It would not have been so serious if the president had offered an alternative based on an aim – independent statehood, free of corruption and stable, with all the conditions for further strengthening," Mr Demoyan said.
It is the lack of this tradition that caused Armenian statehood to follow various trajectories, which ruled out building up a powerful state with a strong army as its basis. The result was a national disaster in 2020. And the Armenian people has now reached a stalemate, including due to misusing its own energy accumulated by the spring of 2018. That enabled foreign forces to use this energy to achieve goals far from Armenia's interests.
According to Mr Demoyan, a group of people came to power in Armenia in 2018 after a predesigned long- term programme was carried out in the country, which was possible due to the previous years of distortion of the historical potential of Armenia and of the Armenian people by Armenia's political, economic and academic elite and – in a broader sense – by the Armenian Diaspora.
"And it was due to that distortion that the good intentions of our intellectuals, the architects of the 1988 Movement aimed at building up a powerful Armenian state, led to the formation of a cannibal state over decades. Human rights protection gave way to capital accumulation and a string of unsolved murders, which was the result of transformation of some of the architects of the Third Republic," he said.
From bad to worse, decisions in conflict with state interests were accompanied by a decision on higher education and intellect not being necessary as components of social development. As a result, the decision- makers decided to turn the sensible people into insensible masses by means of the major degeneration tool, the TV set.
"And here is the main point. The people that considered the Armenian Genocide, Tsisternakaberd [the Memorial to the Genocide victims], Artsakh's independence and Armenia's sovereignty a redline and part of the system of values only yesterday, are unwilling to discuss the issues now for the simple reason that they had over three decades been victims of moral terrorism by decision-makers in Armenia. And the once impossible has not turned into the possible," Mr Devoyan said.